Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Earlier this season, we began our new home-game feature, StubHub vs. Season Tickets in which we compare the cost of getting seats to each and
every Michigan game in The Big House on StubHub vs buying season
tickets, "seat donations" and all. As we mentioned in that first post, not only will we keep a weekly
tally, we'll add it all up at the end of the season to see what the
difference is.

Our hypothesis for this ultra-scientific MZone study is as follows:

Even when paying over face value for the handful of big games in
which supply and demand cause StubHub ticket prices to rise, it will
still be cheaper - and probably substantially so - to buy one's tickets
each week via StubHub

And just to recap the parameters of our study and what different seats in The Big House cost:

We're
assuming two tickets to each game (together) and looking at
different seat locations, all of which now require a "preferred seat
donations" (aka PSDs). For those not familiar with PSDs, Michigan's website describes them as follows:

The Victors Club Preferred Seat Donation is a part of University of
Michigan Athletics overall annual giving program. Currently, three
sports have some portion of the season tickets requiring a Preferred
Seat Donation -- Football, Men's Basketball Courtside Seats, and Ice
Hockey Club Seats. (Note: Courtside and Hockey Club Seats are sold out.
You may contact the Victors Club Office to learn more about future
availability.)

The color-coded diagram indicates the football preferred seating
areas of Michigan Stadium. There are four different annual donation
requirements -- Victors ($500 per seat), Valiant ($375 per seat), Maize
($250 per seat) and Blue ($125 per seat). The End Zone donation
requirement ($50 per seat) applies to any new season tickets holders in
2005 and beyond.

Cost to Purchase U-M Season Tickets in 2012

Michigan only has 6 homes games this season due to the opener in Dallas
against Alabama. And of those six games, all of them have a face
value of $75 each - except the MSU game which is $95 per ticket. Thus,
one's "face value" ticket cost would be $470 per ticket. But...

The
Athletic Department cuts one a break and charges only $390 for season
tickets, which works out to $65 per ticket (it's impossible to know
how/if they charge differently for the "big" games so we'll have to make
it an even $65 each).

Now tack on
your "donation" of $50-$500 per seat and your actual cost of one season
ticket is $440 in the endzone, $515 in the "Blue" section, $640 in the
"Maize" section, $765 in the "Valiant" section and $890 in the "Victors"
section. Now double that for a pair of tickets.

Illinois

This week's home game against 2-4 Illinois also happens to be homecoming. What will that to ticket prices on StubHub? Let's find out.

Season Ticket Price - Endzone Seats:

You,
dear season ticket holder, have two seats in the endzone which cost
$130 plus $100 for your PSD divided by 6 ($16.67) for a grand total of $146.67.

StubHub Price - Endzone Seats:

As of Tuesday night, StubHub had two seats in Section 10, Row 77 for $50 each, a total of $100. But while there is no PSD on StubHub, there is an electronic delivery
charge of $4.95 and a service charge of $10.00. Yes, two tacky tacked on
fees. Totally bullshit but, at a total of $11.95, still less than your
more bullshitty $16.67 PSD.

Endzone Total:

Season Ticket Endzone Guy - $146.67
StubHub Dude - $114.95

Winner: StubHub Dude by $31.72.

Now suppose you have/want better seats. Okay...

Season Ticket Price - Maize Section:

Two tickets in sideline sections 3, 4, 20, 21, 42 or 44 cost you the same $130 as Endzone Guy. But you also had to shell out $500 divided by
6 ($83.33) for a grand total of $213.33 for your chance to watch this year's homecoming game.

StubHub Maize Price:

Found two for in Section 4 for $75 each. Same $4.95 "electronic delivery charge" (aka email) and a service fee of $15 for a total of $169.95.

Maize Section Total:

Season Ticket Maize Guy - $213.33
StubHub Dude - $169.95

Winner: StubHub Dude by $43.38

Now let's live large...

Season Ticket Price - Victors Section

Two
tickets in Section 1, right on the 50, only cost you $65 each as part
of your season tix. But $1,000 divided by 6 tacks on another $166.67
(yikes!).

StubHub Victors Price:

Found two tix in Section 1, Row 87 for $88 each (plus $4.95, plus $17.60).

Victors Section Total:

Season Ticket Victors Guy - $296.67
StubHub Dude - $198.55

Winner (by TKO): StubHub Dude by $98.12.

Season Totals

Endzone Seats on StubHub:

UMass - Saved $64.72
Illinois - Saved $31.72

Total Endzone StubHub Savings So Far - $96.44

Maize Seats on StubHub:

UMass - Saved $87.38
Illinois - Saved $43.38

Total Maize Section Savings So Far - $130.76

Victors Seats on StubHub:

UMass - Saved $165.24
Illinois - Saved $98.12

Total Victors Section Savings So Far - $263.36

NOTE: I didn't start this series until after the Air Force game and thus don't have exact figures, but a cursory check before the game as I was thinking about a post topic like this revealed something between the UMass and Illinois numbers. We'll factor those in at the end of the season.

Michigan State

The only "hot" ticket on the U-M home schedule this year is the Michigan State game on October 20th (sorry, Northwestern). When I did the UMass post for this series, I could get
two in the endzone for $220 each, or in Section 1 for $450 each. Today, on Tuesday night as I finish this post, here is the MSU ticket sitch on StubHub:

2 comments:

as of monday, you could still buy a single ticket to MooSU from the Michigan ticket office for $95 (+ $6 fee)for a total of $101 (endzone, section 16, row 92). that's face value w/ no PSD, no scalper fee.

I'm telling you.... CHECK THE DAY OF THE GAME. Stubhub allows the sliding price so it drops to nothing for even a bigger savings. Another trick... Log on to stubhub and set up an account "fake" like you are selling tickets, then when it takes you to the pricing screen, you can see what tickets actually sold for and the dates. Thus you could set alerts and people did buy tickets at that price. This also shows trending.

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